Rahul Gandhi slams EC over new ‘e-sign’ voter verification feature

New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of introducing a new voter verification measure only after alleged irregularities in Karnataka’s Aland constituency came to light.

His remarks came after The Indian Express reported that the Election Commission had added an ‘e-sign’ requirement on its ECINET portal and mobile application. Applicants seeking new voter registration, deletion, or corrections must now verify their identity using Aadhaar-linked phone numbers.

Sharing the report on social media, Gandhi wrote: “Gyanesh ji, we caught the theft and only then did you remember to put a lock – now we’ll catch the thieves too. So tell us, when are you going to give the evidence to the CID [Karnataka Police’s Criminal Investigation Department]?”

The new feature, absent until Monday, appeared on the ECINET platform on Tuesday, according to the report. Previously, applicants could submit requests by linking a phone number with an Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) number, without any further verification.

Gandhi alleged last week that software was being used to systematically delete voter names in Karnataka, with deletions carried out using fake IDs and phone numbers from outside the state. He claimed that in Aland alone, 6,018 applications impersonating genuine voters had been filed. These people never submitted such requests, he said, adding that the Election Commission had ignored 18 reminders from the CID and state poll panel for crucial technical data.

The Congress leader also accused Kumar of shielding those responsible for “vote theft”, demanding accountability.

The Election Commission dismissed Gandhi’s allegations as “incorrect and baseless”. It said that no member of the public could delete votes online, as claimed, and clarified that in 2023 only 24 deletion requests in Aland had been verified and approved. Of 6,018 suspicious applications, the poll panel said, 5,994 were found to have been filed with malicious intent by unidentified individuals. An FIR had been lodged by the Commission itself.

The Aland seat, won by the BJP in 2018 and by Congress in 2023, remains at the center of the controversy. The Karnataka government has since handed over the case to the Criminal Investigation Department, forming a Special Investigation Team earlier this month.

Applicants filling Form 6 (new voter registration), Form 7 (objection to inclusion or deletion of a name), or Form 8 (correction of entries) on the ECINET portal are now required to complete an e-sign verification process, The Indian Express reported.

The portal asks users to ensure that the name on their voter card matches the name on their Aadhaar card and that the mobile number being used is Aadhaar-linked.

Once the form is filled, applicants are redirected to an external e-sign portal managed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, under the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. There, they must enter their Aadhaar number, generate a one-time password (OTP), and authenticate it through the Aadhaar-linked mobile number. After consenting to Aadhaar-based verification, applicants are redirected back to the ECINET portal to submit their forms.

Launched earlier this year, ECINET consolidates and reorganizes more than 40 of the Election Commission’s applications used by voters and officials.

A first information report into the alleged deletion of voters in Aland was filed by Kalburagi Assistant Commissioner and Aland Returning Officer Mamatha Kumari.

The case stemmed from a complaint by former Congress MLA BR Patil, who alleged that 6,670 voters from 256 polling booths in the constituency had been illegally removed from the electoral rolls.

An Election Commission inquiry later found that applications had been filed through various government online platforms to delete 6,018 voters. Of these, only 24 were processed and approved as per procedure, while 5,994 applications were flagged as suspicious. These had been submitted by unidentified individuals using multiple mobile numbers, with the affected voters reportedly unaware that their names were being fraudulently removed.

Following the inquiry, Kumari lodged the complaint. In December 2023, the case was handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department.

On Saturday, the Karnataka Congress government constituted a Special Investigation Team under the CID to probe the alleged voter deletions.